Serial Drama

Andrea Lynn Evans, 1957-2023

What a loss. I just feel like this one warrants a space here.

Thanks for your light, Ms. Evans. It's no secret I was a fan. (And may November 2nd always be Tina Clayton Lord Roberts Day!)

General Hospital: Home Again?

Does anyone else find Sam and Jason's bedroom kind of hilarious? I mean, he's Mr. No-Frills Black T-Shirt and she's Ms. Badass Low-Maintenance (okay, sure, she wears 17-inch stilettos in the most casual of circumstances and a ton of makeup but, in fairness, all of that is the bare minimum on soaps). Like what even is this headboard?

That said, it's nice to see a bedroom set at all. I thought this was a soap! We should be in bedrooms constantly!

I have terrible hair jealousy when I watch Crimson scenes.

That's... the majority of what I experience watching Crimson scenes. (I've said before that I'm still open to Nelle as a character, though I realize I'm in a minority on that one. I think the actress is dyn-o-mite, but I just wish they'd clarify who this person is any second now so that we -- and she -- have more to work with. We already did the "she's a mystery, we're not sure what her deal is" storyline. This time they could try changing it up by TELLING US one way or the other, for crap's sake. So that we know something Carly and company do not. Because that's fun. Remember fun?)

You know what? I was trying to get excited about this Tale of Two Jasons story. It's not as if something similar, as unlikely as it seemed, hasn't been pulled off spectacularly in the past. And there are certainly some actors involved here who could more than pull off something pretty great. Despite my well-documented history of hating Jason Morgan, hope springs eternal.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

Just... this facial expression. We're in for it. Over and over and over again. 

Quick Survey!

Literally one question: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8KSJWMX

It's anonymous and you can pick more than one thing! Feel free to expand on it in the comments here -- if you picked Web Soaps, do you have favorites? If you picked 90210, what are your favorite seasons? Etc!

Edited to add: I want to clarify one thing. I'm probably not going to cover the best new shows on television. Or the best old shows. If I can't have a little fun at the show's expense, for the most part, you can find lots of much more high-profile commentary on just about everything. I'm not here to recap Friday Night Lights or The Wire. I even dropped The Fosters because I like it and other places covered it well (Previously TV, Autostraddle, etc) but I noticed some sites dropped them so, hey, low-coverage shows are more likely to happen here if they're worth it. Maybe I'll pick it back up.

This is kind of stream-of-consciousness, but I just wanted to offer up a sense of what's behind the thinking here! 

 

Days of Our Lives: Last Chapter of Eve

Okay folks, I'm recapping today's episode of Days of Our Lives because it's Kassie DePaiva's last day as Eve, and I have a long, long history of adoring Kassie DePaiva.

I haven't seen most of her run. I stopped by last year for a few days and then peeked in every now and then (particularly to watch the episodes around Eve losing her daughter to some serial killer or another* and to check out the A Martinez situation), and I watched her scenes yesterday (and fast-forwarded through about a million people from All My Children and One Life to Live, including Rex standing there with terrible hair talking to someone who looks way too much like Stacey Morasco to not trigger some PTSD). And that's about it. So I'm coming in not totally blind, but something closer to legally blind.

(Who was that girl she was vocal-coaching yesterday?)

So they open by wasting DePaiva's last few moments by repeating the back half of her scene from yesterday. So she's taking this girl to NYC for a Juilliard audition, I guess?

Maybe you can get us some tickets to Hamilton?

You're adorable. Sure, I'll sell my private jet in exchange for them.

This other blonde comes in and tells Eve she's overstepped her boundaries with her daughter. Are you kidding me? This woman is old enough to be that other chick's mother?

Did she birth her at her sixth grade school dance? 

Ava has locked Kayla away somewhere and Patch is pretending to want to get together with her in order to convince her into freeing Kayla. Or do we call him Steve now? That seems a little more grown-up, but he does still have the patch.

Somebody whose name I don't know is talking to Dylan McKay's dad about finding a new job in Salem.

Eve is continuing to butt heads with Belle. Oh wait, Belle! She's played by that chick who temporarily played Elizabeth over on General Hospital and also I think Belle is the character that Kirsten Storms (Maxie, GH) played when she was on this show. Soapland!

Theresa is talking to Nicole about their start-up. What they're starting up, I don't know. And Theresa is played by Jen Lilley, who played Maxie for a while on GH. What a web.

Anyhoo, back to this scene between Stefan Cassadine and Carly Corinthos, I mean this scene between Reese and Tucker, or I guess what's really happening is that Ava is telling Steve he has to sex her in order to convince her to release Kayla. Oh cool, rape! Never too much rape stuff on soaps, amirite??

Eve, whose hairstyle looks tremendous but whose roots are....not good, gives Belle some parenting advice based on her own shortcomings. 

Ray Montez/Roy DiLucca/Cruz Castillo is up to something shady but I have no idea what.

Ava: You give me a piece of this? And I will be happy to tell you where Kayla is. And then you're going to come with me to find our son, or I'm going to tell Kayla what you did. So do we have a deal?

Charming.

Meanwhile, Katherine Bell/Sierra Esteban is trying to bust out of a room through a doggie door.

It's too small, Kayla. 

Jack McKay got the guy with the icy piercing blue eyes a job, starting immediately! Like taking candy from a baby. I think this guy was on that horrible Dirty Soap show, right?

Belle wants to get Claire another vocal coach, but Claire is NOT HAVING IT. 

Eduardo is holding a gun on some dude's neck talking about how "only the student can defeat the master." I mean if I had a nickel. And then he lets him go after taking a smartphone picture of him.

The Fosters: Mixed Messages

Hey, Fosters viewers (and Serial Drama readers who don't watch the show but just like reading TV blogs!), I think I'll skip doing the beat-by-beat recap this time because it does get a little dull. I'm going to shake it up a tiny bit. I AM LIVING ON THE EDGE, PEOPLE. Here we go!

Wait, so this is the car Brandon drives?

Somebody's going to have to refresh my memory. That can't be his car, right? Is that the one that Callie's bio-dad bought for her? It has to be, doesn't it? Anyway, just more of Brandon's horrible life, just having to drive around in a sweet ride like that. Pretty sure that car could pay for a year at Juilliard, but if it's Callie's, they better not let her sell it FOR LOVE or whatever. (Okay but seriously, is it Brandon's?)

Basically the A-storyline starts when Jude is reading Romeo and Juliet for school and quotes a passage, asking what it means. Dream-teen heartthrob Brandon knows! "It means Romeo wants to bang his sister," he says. Or really something about how hard it is being apart from the person you love, and he and Callie exchange gross incestuous looks. If this show is trying to sell some crap about Callie and Brandon being like Romeo and Juliet, I suggest someone on that team re-read that play and realize that Romeo and Juliet did not have a great love story but in fact were total idiots (okay, that part is an awful lot like Brandon and Callie) whose adolescent obsession with each other left them AND MANY OTHERS dead forever. Families ruined. Souls destroyed. And they were kept from dating (and probably breaking up after not too long) because of a hateful, horrible, foolish, deadly ANCIENT GRUDGE. You know, NOT BECAUSE THEY WERE SIBLINGS. (Oops, I got a little wound up. I have a long history of overreacting when pop culture tries to parallel contemporary stories with R&J because they always treat it as if it was a great love story with a sad ending instead of one of the more brilliantly and astonishingly devastating tragedies of all time.) Anyway, they closed it out with Jude being all, "Tell me about it," and let's hope that he and Connor are no more like Romeo and Juliet than any other healthy, breathing humans with parents who are not dangerously insane. But really, they don't even let up. Later, Brandon tells that new chick about the whole thing and she refers to Brandon and Callie as "star-crossed lovers" and I almost puke and actually wish she would finish out the sentence with the original "take their life" (I'm just kidding, show, please no suicides!). 

Does the R&J nonsense end there? It does not. Brandon, in fact, is writing a new song that he plays for Mat and the lyrics to the song are just the effing prologue to Romeo and Juliet. I'm going to need an apothecary myself. Any second now. Oh, he decides it's going to be a rock opera. Is this R&J musical adaptation (that is not West Side Story, by the by) going to be an extended storyline, continuing to imply some nonsense parallel to Brandon and Callie? WHAT, HO! APOTHECARY! BRING ME SOME MORTAL POISON PLS.

(Can confirm. Upside? Corbin Bleu from One Life to Live will be Mercutio! Because he's still playing high school students? And it's also an actual musical written by Bradley Bredeweg called Romeo and Juliet: Love Is A Battlefield, which kind of sounds like cheesy hilariousness. Horrible downside? Again, hideously implied parallels to Brandon and Callie.)

Worried Callie is worried.

This means that Callie has to tell Brandon that she told Daphne about their sibling sex, but (as someone smartly suggested in the comments last week) Daphne thinks the "sex with your foster brother" might refer to Liam. All is well! Later Callie gets gussied up for a Fost and Found photo shoot and looks super-slick.

And then Brandon brandons it up by telling her she doesn't look like her and there is a god because she fully calls him out for that bullshit. But then what's the first thing she does? Scrubs it all off. Is this impostor syndrome, or is this really all just guilt about that terrible choice she made with Brandon?

Daytime Emmys: Live Blog

7:53pm:  Who's ready?

8:00pm:  They're doing a sketch about Ellen DeGeneres and Matt Lauer, which mostly seems about how they definitely will not show up for this thing. I mean it's for charity! That's the nicer thing. "Charity," unspecified. 

8:03pm: Tyra's hosting, it's real! This is the first time she's ever hosted an awards show, and is nervous about her lack-of-weave. In her childhood, they watched GH and Y&R. Tyra is basically overdramatically wonderful. She is rapping. Should she rap? I don't know about that.

8:08pm: Steve Harvey is presenting, and requests that the producers stop filming the losers' faces. 

8:09pm: Outstanding Actress! Finola, Elizabeth, Linsey, Amelia, and Lisa. Even Finola Hughes's clip made made me weepy. But, she did not win. Amelia Heinle won. She's insanely pretty. But she is not Finola Hughes. I feel crazy right now. 

8:13pm: Something about a game show? At least everyone seems awake. Outstanding Entertainment News Program! Entertainment Tonight wins. I outright did not know this was still a thing, but I do not claim to be on the cutting edge.

Who's here? Is anyone actually watching? Are you drinking to get through, or just suffering alone in some more healthy manner?

8:16pm:  Fan favorite award! Favorite talk show... audience? I don't even understand this award. I voted, but I don't remember being asked about an audience. Can we get Serial Drama readers an award now? If this is how things are working now, I'd like that very much.

8:20pm:  The hostesses of The Talk are presenting, and mostly Aisha Tyler is really, really, really, really tall. And they're joking about audiences. Because they're about to give an audience award, and I'm still confused. Did they trick me into voting in this category? Sara Gilbert is staring to look almost exactly like her wife. But, Craig Ferguson wins. I still don't understand the category, but my dog has farted in protest.

THERE IS BETTY WHITE. So no matter what anyone says, this show is the most important thing on television right now. Because Betty White is there.

8:25pm: Kirsten Storms and Ryan Paevy present Outstanding Morning Program. CBS Sunday Morning wins, because it is a thing on the air. Some old white men accept the award and speak awkwardly into the microphone.

8:26pm: They show clips from the Best Bitch Slap nominees. I actually saw none of these when they happened, so this is a bit of a delight. (Brooke looks like she deserved it?) Oh hey! B&B won for Quinn slapping drunk Brooke!

8:30pm:  Tyra is wearing very little, and now my dog is literally just standing in front of me, staring. She must be baffled as to why I'd be watching this. They're doing a video package of some fifth grade teacher. (I see some comments are coming in. soapbaby is with us!) Anyway the teacher is there and is crying and looks so beautiful and I love it!

8:34pm: They've already cut show clips for Outstanding Supporting Actor. That was fast! Chad Duell wins for General HospitalI! Good for him. Who can help but get behind him in Michael's new Sonny-hating mode? Truthfully, he's very good but this past year has given him a more generous showcase than the past sad-sack material. He thanks Ron Carlivati, Frank Valentini, Kristen Alderson, and God. Twice. Oh, Jesus made the cut, too.

8:36pm: Someone is singing "What I Did For Love" and they're doing a montage of actual soap scenes. ACTUAL SCENES. You guys. Among a hundred other things, they did the "Sonny sees Brenda outside the church in the rain alive" scene. And I actually really like this. No snark, y'all. None at all. Though I would still rather see nominees' clips.

8:40pm: Mario Lopez is presenting Outstanding Morning Program: Spanish Language. Una... nope, sorry, I did not understand the title of the winner. But AC Slater presented, so all is well! The dimples are all happening. My dog keeps shoving her face into my keyboard.

Glamorous life of a soap blogger: my dog has just pooped on the floor.

8:45pm: BETTY WHITE IS GETTING AN AWARD, EVERYONE SHOW RESPECT.

Those track suits do not bedazzle themselves, you guys.

Charo and Regis and Fred Willard and Marie Osmond are on hand to introduce her. Y'all. Betty White. Betty White. What is there to snark about? She is human perfection. Shut up. I'm not crying, your face is crying! 

Okay, I'm crying. The tribute was a bit odd, though. Nothing from the past 35 years?? Aww, Fred Willard is acknowledging her time on B&B and her fantastic work in animal rights. And Charo says Betty is the one who "put the coochee in the coochee coochee coochee."

So Betty White, the world's most wonderful human, accepts her Lifetime Achievement Award. She loves the award, but she's not quite as hot for it as she was for the anatomically-correct SAG dude. Well, what's to say? Nobody can make fun of Betty.

Oh, O42 has joined us in the comments, hooray! Who else is playing along?

As a New Yorker, I do have to remind you that the Subway Series is happening right now, so this is totally unfair in every way. Currently: Yankees 3, Mets 2.

8:59pm: Tyra introduces Miss J, and Tyra is wearing a one-shouldered onesie of some sort. B&B recently had its 7000th episode, so they're there to celebrate. Jacob Young, Karla Moseley, and Linsey Godfrey (on no crutches!) are there to be adorable. Godfrey gets a bit choked up. She's so cute.

9:01pm Outstanding Younger Actor goes to Freddie Smith, who plays Sonny on Days. Aww, I like him and all the people crying for him! 

9:04pm Outstanding Younger Actress goes to Hunter King for Y&R. Was she the one who sounded like she had laryngitis? 

Commenter Anne understands that Finola was robbed.

9:08pm: I confess I got distracted and I have no idea what these people are introducing. Oh! Outstanding "Informative" Talk Show goes to Steve Harvey. I wrote a play about a dating expert and I read Think Like A Man, so.... that is my context. I do not recommend his dating advice if you were born after 1900. If you were born before that, you are freaking awesome.

9:12pm: Outstanding Entertainment Talk Show Host goes to Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan, who are not there. I have just poured my first glass of wine. 

9:13pm: Fan Favorite for wedding disasters. Not going to lie, I voted for Franco's "hell no," but I foolishly had not yet seen Ridge fall out of a helicopter.

What do you guys think of this Queens of Drama show?

9:17pm: Okay, so the cast of that show is there. WHY IS CRYSTAL HUNT INVOLVED?? Can I get a "what the....???" from my OLTL people?

Anyway, Outstanding Directing Team goes to The Bold and the Beautiful. I mean, sure! If Ridge is getting pushed out of a helicopter, we care about your mise-en-scène.

I feel like I missed the Matt Lauer joke. Who caught why they're doing this?

9:21pm: Alan Thicke, for some reason, presents the writing award, which goes to The Bold and the Beautiful. Um. Okee doke? I know it's sort of my job to be meanest to the writers, but I'm a writer and sometimes it's....well, you get it. But still. B&B?

9:24pm: Outstanding Game Show goes to upstart Jeopardy! Who'd have guessed? I'm so proud of them. They really are the Little Game Show That Could.

I see commenter C is in the house! (Can we talk about Kyle and Fish now???) (Y'all know I remember your particulars if you're regulars here!)

Okay, seriously. How did I miss the Matt Lauer thing??

Oh, thanks, soapbaby! "Charity!"

9:28pm: Outstanding "Informative" Talk Show Host goes to the hosts of The Chew. Hrmph. Still bitter!

I am now thinking maybe I got out of the late-night dog walk since she pooped on the floor? (Alas, life does not work that way.)

9:32pm: Outstanding Culinary Program goes to Barefoot Contessa. My day job has a legal relationship with her. THAT IS ALL I KNOW.

9:33pm: 50th anniversary of Days! Hell yeah. Oh dear. I might be a little teary-eyed. Thank god they covered demon Marlena!!!

9:40pm: Joan Rivers tribute. I will be quiet now.

Crystal Hunt is still on my screen. Not okay. 

Yes, C, let's talk about Kim! Were you so sad when she got the Mindy Project boot?

Oh, the In Memoriam always makes me sad! Oh gosh, Matthew Cowles. My heart hurts for the spectacular Christine Baranski.

Is it nuts that they showed acting clips on literally only one category? Come on, y'all!

9:50pm: They are giving the fans a vacuum cleaner. What the eff year is this?

Are we feeling like this is not actually ending in 8 minutes?

9:53pm: Outstanding Talk Show "Entertainment" goes to Ellen because Ellen and so obviously she is not there. Did you guys see Amy Schumer on her show? Can we talk? And laugh?

Um, I think we're going to run long, y'all.

9:56pm: Uh-oh, some suit is there to convince us that daytime is in great shape. Outstanding Lead Actor. Anthony? Billy? Jason? Christian? Well, it's Anthony Geary.

I will let you guys comment.

10:02pm: Outstanding Lead Actress. Is it Laura? Peggy? Maura? Alison? Gina? Well, of course it's Maura. Multi-network love. She is so happy and I love it.

Seriously, we're spamming now?

Carvilati? I feel like people keep saying this.

10:09pm:  Pretty sure Tyra just said "Gene" Francis, so here we are.

Whoa! A tie! Days  won. For one.

Y&R won for the second!

10:13pm: That wasn't too far over! And y'all? I still love soaps. So flippin' much. Thanks for still playing with us!

(Daytime Grammys?)

Okay, I walked my dog. Thank you guys for hanging out, whether live or not!

The Young & the Restless: Since the Radio

Before I launch into watching the show and hammering out my real-time stream-of-consciousness reactions, I will give Y&R the same treatment I gave to DAYS last week. My history with the show: there was one summer at my grandmother's house that watched a few weeks' worth of episode. This was sometime in the mid-80s. I couldn't tell you much about storylines, but I vaguely recall a Nina/Danny/Cricket triangle. And some breaking up and reuniting between Victor and Nikki (are they still doing that dance?). I think there was an Ashley and a Lauren and a Paul. When I was that age, I was only allowed to watch 2 total hours of television per week, and I stuck with Y&R for a few months because it offered a loophole: CBS came in loud and clear on my radio. So I listened to it. Like it was some other century! Well, technically it was. It was some other millennium. I got radio fatigue after a while, though, since of course the show wasn't meant to just be heard and it was really tough to keep track of who was who and what was going on. The point is that it's been nearly 30 years since I followed the show at all, so I am jumping in mostly blind here. I'm frightened!

A man is angrily bursting into a room. He's drunk and someone is helping him to another room.

He's feeling guilty about something and wants to tell the police. A younger lady pops into the frame and wonders aloud what he means to confess to.

Oh! Cricket and Paul! Right? I know these characters!

They're talking to Dixie Martin, Cliff Warner, and Kelly Cramer!

It's old home week! (I have no idea who any of them are playing.) Cricket looks like someone took a mallet to her face. Dixie... oh, Kelly! I think her name is Kelly here. Kelly pretends that she lied about somebody named Phyllis being guilty of...something. She pretends that she lied to hang on to Jack. Cricket doesn't believe her, which is good because her lying is laughably bad. "Is somebody threatening you?" asks Paul. Kelly's eyes dart from side to side. Cliff Warner looks suspiciously over at... Victor! Who is poking at a smartphone in a nearby armchair, as you do.

Credits! Original song still intact! I dig it.

A blonde has a flashback to talking to some other girl about who killed... Austin, I think? And then another flashback to another girl yelling at her for sleeping with her husband. Blonde seems popular! 

Okay so that other girl is at a cafe complaining to some dude that Abby slept with her husband. Oh! Okay, so Blonde is Abby. Got it. She opens her powder and someone spelled out "I know what you did" on the mirror! (I just watched Pretty Little Liars so got a little disoriented when there was no "-A." at the end of that.)

Cricket keeps talking about prosecuting people. I guess she's an attorney now? District Attorney or something? Anyway, Kelly is sticking to her story and getting slightly less awful at lying, as Victor looks on smarmily.

Drunk Guy's wife cheated on him, I guess? And he maintains that he's going to jail. Neil! His name is Neil!

Days of our Lives: Second Time in Salem

Well folks, I decided to watch Days of Our Lives today. So before I start live-blogging it (which really will just be recap since it's not like I'm posting in real time, but I don't know what else to call it), this is my relationship with the show: I have watched two episodes of it. Ever. Those two episodes were when Marlena was possessed by the devil. Or some other demon? I don't know but it was freakin' awesome. My point, though, is that I really am coming in knowing absolutely nothing. Running in soap circles means I know a few of the couples and a few of the names but truly not many. So bear with me, as I will probably get some names wrong or not know names at all or accidentally call them by names of characters they played on other shows or just identify them by the actors' names or just be all "this other middle aged white dude" about it. I don't know what I'm doing here. So this should be fun.

Ready?

Okay!

A blonde is flashing back to catching a young dude in bed with BLAIR DAIMLER, let's call her (no, let's not, I do know she's Eve on here but I had to get that out of my system) (any of you who ever read my OLTL posts know full well that Blair was my favorite character on that show, so let's all just face the fact that I'm biased in her direction here, especially if she's a bitch).

Apparently it was bad news for this blonde. I think this blonde is married to Scott Reeves. In real life, not on the show. I don't think he's on this show. Although he might be. 

Some other blonde is flashing back to a friendly moment with Lucky Spencer Actor #3, Greg Vaughan, my second-favorite Lucky. 

Dylan McKay's dad is talking to Kelly Taylor's ex-fiance and I can't really what they're talking about because Dylan McKay's dad has truly bizarre speech patterns. I wonder how many times this version of Dylan McKay's dad has come back from the dead. Just once on BH90210, I think. Sky's the limit on daytime, though.

Hey, it's Natalie Vega! (Notice how I am just going to pick my favorite last name for all the women, since all soap women have had like forty last names.)

Temporary Maxie Jones is coming to visit Eve. I think her name is Theresa? Lord this is going to confuse me. You know those two-hander plays where two actors play thirty-seven characters and you have to play mental olympics to keep up? That's what this is already feeling like.

Blonde is confronting.... JJ? To ask him why he did it. "It," I presume, being Eve. Which, have you seen her? Why is an explanation necessary? There's some brunette individual listening in, in plain sight since this is a soap and that's how we do.

Opening credits! Y'all, I could not be more psyched that they've kept their classic opening! That's so awesome! Did they ever try to do something cheesy-contemporary at any point and then go back?

Other blonde is monologue-ing to herself about how she doesn't have feelings for Eric, who I suppose is Greg Vaughan's character? Anyway, she's flashing back.... or having a fantasy. She's making out with some dark-haired guy who I think has been on this show forever.

Beacon Hill: Surprise!

Okay, fancytime soap nerds, let's take a look at the Season 1 finale of Beacon Hill, shall we? I think the running time should allow this to be quick and painless. The weather outside in NYC right now suggests I might electrocute myself just for writing this, so don't ever suggest I don't love y'all, okay?

And we're off! Some part of me assumed that as the season finale (and the fact that we'll be waiting a full year for the next season), the episode would be super-sized. You know, like 13 minutes. Or even 10. I saw the progress bar and realized this was not the case. So hang onto your hats because a lot of everything and a lot of nothing will be happening!

I need to talk about the title cards real quick.

Is this a digital image of an eyeball or a vagina? I'm certain it's one or the other, but the graphics confuse me. 

Anyway, we open on Tom Wesley driving and dialing his daughter. He leaves her a grumpy voicemail that she can't keep ignoring his calls. Don't worry, he's using a hands-free device of some sort.

Sara is working on her computer when her step-grandmother comes in to say hello. Oddly, she doesn't open with, "Hi, Nana!!"

Evelyn sits down to chat with Sara and tries to explain how much she and Sara's grandfather love each other. Sara is appropriately squicked by the idea of her grandfather being romantic with anyone, much less this young chesty thing. Sara gets a mysterious phone call and has to bolt, leaving Evelyn looking messy and sad. And busty.

Sara runs down the street in her cute hat taking a "very important call" from her editor. 

It's my favorite kind of soap opera one-sided phone call, with vague references to an angry but out-of-line person on the other line demanding that some sort of unspecified deadline be met immediately. She will GET HIM HIS STORY, DAMMIT!

She knocks on a door. It's Katherine's door!

Sara goes in and Katherine gives her some coffee. It took way too long to play the obvious beat of Katherine remembering how Sara takes her coffee. Then they talk about how awkward this is, because why show when it's way quicker to tell and you only have seven minutes? Anyway, the basic idea is that Katherine wants to explore Sara's suggestion that they try to be friends. "You weren't just my lover, Kate," says Sara, "you were my best friend!" Do people still call each other their "lovers?" Honest question. I can't wait to use that expression soon. 

The 2014 Daytime Emmys Live-Blogging Extravaganza

The biggest television night of the year is here! Okay. The most important television broadcast is... oh hell, I don't know. They're having a small party and handing out some statues and streaming it online and calling it the Daytime Emmys. I have volunteered to take the hit and subject myself to it so you don't have to, or so you'll watch knowing at least one other human is out there dealing with it. "Extravaganza" can be interpreted as ironically as you please. 

Sadly, Mallory will have to sit this year out but I'm sure she'll be somewhere feeling really jealous of the rest of us gluttons for punishment. And as some of you know, I haven't been watching any of the daytime soaps this year but since these awards are for the 2013 season, I'll actually sort of know what's going on. Well, 5% of the time since the rest will presumably be about talk shows and children's television.

So come join me back here at 8pm Eastern time tonight and we'll go through this together!

This time I'm just doing it the old-fashioned way, so you'll have to keep refreshing the screen to get the new comments (instead of the rolling live feed we've sometimes had).

6:18pm Hey y'all! So the red carpet is already streaming so it'll be slow-going at this point because I'm not all that interested in this part. But I'll check in from time to time between now and the main event, so if you're watching, start sounding off in the comments below!

What fresh hell is this? Who are these ladies doing the red carpet interviews? The very first thing I saw was them telling an actor he needed to get away or else they were going to RAPE HIM. No, they really said that. It's out there in the world. So I see we're setting the tone for the night: classy!

6:24pm "Oh my god how great are dads??"

We're channeling Proust here, people.

In case anyone needs the link to the live-stream: http://www.daytimeemmys.net/ 

I missed the beginning. Did they say anything about who these "professional reporters" are? Is this part of a test run for an unpaid internship, I hope?

6:31pm They want to nominate Heather Tom's boobies for an award. Because classy.

Kim Matula just used more gestures in answering four questions on the red carpet than she has in her entire tenure as Hope Logan on B&B. I'm just saying.

Kristen Alderson's dress is radioactive. My eyes hurt!

That photo doesn't really do the blinding-ness justice. But it's bright, is my point.

6:43pm So basically the gist is that these women are going to tell everyone how thin they look and how amazing that is. Feminism is alive and well, people. I feel like I'm at a bad sorority party. I don't mind that they're crass potty-mouths (in fact, that's my default state) but not when it's so utterly vapid and insincere. I half expect them to start greeting grown women with, "Hey slut, oh god, I hate you, look how hot that dress is, bitch! I die."

6:51pm Well, they basically had no idea who Jason Thompson is. Only one of the best actors in daytime by a country mile, but they just filled a few seconds with random blathering that had nothing to do with him.

My feed just died. Temporarily? I don't know. But I'm not complaining.

7:00pm Zack Conroy remains adorable. B&B viewers, do they still give him absolutely nothing to do these days?

I got restless during some buffering.

This broadcast had devolved my sense of humor into that of a four-year-old.

Also, Finola Hughes is a goddess.

(Continued...)